


Document Preservation

by chaoticrandomness



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Libraries, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5870674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/pseuds/chaoticrandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After learning of their library's potential closure, a variety of townspeople attempt to save it, and go through their daily lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_ Hearth Town Council Proposes Closing Of Public Library, Vote Delayed…. so I guess that I actually have a reason to be here, now?  _

 

_ Why did no one tell me about this, though?!  _

 

Yes, the only person from Hearth I’ve talked to in five years is my brother, but he and my father both work for the library and probably should’ve learned about their place of employment being about to close. 

 

_ Why are they doing this?! I’ve been wandering through pretty much everywhere over the past five years, and I kept running into people looking for copies of letters people write during war and speeches that were never given and other random documents from the past. I wanted to tell them that there’s a library in the tiny town of Hearth with copies of literally everything they could want and more.  _

 

_ Isn’t that a perfectly good reason to keep the place open?!  _

 

I’m standing in front of my house’s front door, which someone painted black after I left. I don’t want to see my father, but he’s probably still at the library right now, so I can just talk to my brother and figure out what to do next. 

 

_ Knowing him, he’d call me an idiot and berate me before breaking down and crying, and I’m not sure which one I’d rather experience right now….  _

 

“I’m sorry, there’s-oh my god, what the hell are you doing here?!” my brother exclaims as he opens the door and almost throws his coffee mug at my head. 

 

“Why did you never tell me that they’re closing down the library?” I ask. 

 

“I thought you wouldn’t be interested, for you never seemed to care all that much about it when we were kids.” he answers, as he leads me into the house and sits down at the kitchen table, which looks exactly the same from before I left. 

 

_ Fine, I wasn’t an avid reader as a kid, unlike you, Matthew, but they still had stuff that I thought was good, there’s that massive historical document repository, and they used to host those town-wide open stage events and their annual summer picnic…. so what fills the void after all that stuff dies?  _

 

“Still, why are they closing it?!” I exclaim, for this makes no sense…. 

 

“...because they’ve noticed that the only reason most people use the library is to look at the document repository, so they think that turning it into a museum will serve the town better.” he answers. 

“Can’t you just start classes on how to read French and Latin and Old English and all the other languages those documents are in?” I ask, for people can go learn how to read the originals and how to speak more languages, which is going to pay off in this town filled with people from pretty much  _ everywhere _ on the planet. 

 

“...we’ve almost filed for bankruptcy after hosting…. basically a make-your-own bootleg Hello Kitty with tomatoes contest, and I’m pretty sure the town council’s convinced that we’re falling behind the times, as we just got computers last year.” my brother answers.

 

_ Okay, so the current board of directors has a few people who’re probably on drugs, but…. from an outside point of view, everyone in this town is on drugs. Or high.  _

 

“When are they voting on this?” I ask, for if the meeting’s soon, I’m going to walk into that building and lay out all of the reasons why they are making a huge mistake, and I will do it calmly and logically. 

 

“...actually, you have two months to prepare your speech, for the article says that they’re not voting on anything until someone gets elected to the vacant seat.” my brother answers, as he slides the newspaper towards me and points at a line. 

 

_ Due to the recent hospitalization of Councilman Beilschmidt, there will be no meetings until after Election Day…. wait, hold on….  _

 

_ I have a better idea now!  _

 

“I’m going to be talking to some people, so please try to see if the library council likes my ideas….” I say as I run out the door, for I am going to save this library by running for public office. 

 

_ My entire life…. has been a string of not-awful impulsive decisions. Why should this one be any different?  _

 

* * *

 

If the town council ever sat in on one of our board of directors meetings, they’d at least have a valid reason for shutting the entire building down, for almost everyone here is a completely and utter moron. 

 

Three of us are relatively sane, but the other four consist of three people with no grip on reality and my mortal enemy, and all of our meetings degenerate into shouting matches about the most random things on the planet. We have gotten absolutely  _ nothing  _ done in the past three months. 

 

_ I came here because I wanted to get as far away from screaming idiots, and I ended walking into a town filled with them. At least….  _

_ I ran away from my family for stupid reasons when I was a teenager. I should’ve expected one of my children to do the same thing.  _

 

“So, call meeting to session?” Kiku asks, and I need to stop grieving. 

 

“Yes, we are finally calling this bloody meeting to session, since the town council wants to shut this entire place down and we have two months to get more people to come here  _ without  _ losing any money.” I answer, as I bang a gavel I found somewhere. 

 

“What exactly was the financial situation we found ourselves in after we bought thirty crates of tomatoes from that organic tomato farmer last year?” Yao asks, and he should know this, because he and Feliciano and that idiotic tomato farmer planned that whole  _ catastrophe _ . 

 

_ We almost filed for bankruptcy, you morons! And we had to sell twenty-nine tomato crates on the internet to save ourselves!  _

 

_ When I took over as head, this department wasn’t overrun by morons!  _

 

“...the failure of…. whatever it was that you were planning last year played a role in the council seeing us only as a document repository?” someone asks, but he doesn’t sound like anyone here. 

 

_ For all I know, we’ve been infiltrated by ghosts or there’s someone hiding under the table….  _

 

“So, the obvious solution to that problem is to expand out into other areas of business, am I right?” 

 

“Yeah! Like that Halloween costume contest where my brother dressed up as an old lady with a shotgun! Remember, that one, ten years ago?” 

 

_ Oh god, no. There is no way in hell that we are doing anything that ridiculous.  _

 

“Unfortunately, we have no money, so hosting any events would be incredibly unlikely. Increasing publicity is our best shot at not dying before the council votes on whether to kill our library.” I answer, for we are not going down the road to financial ruin a second time. 

 

_ Have we ever agreed unanimously on anything?! Someone probably dissented when we hired the tech support guys and installed three computers and wifi, come to think of it….  _

 

“How do you propose increasing our publicity, Kirkland? Just repeat what we’ve always done, and expect it to work this time?” Francis asks, and he has deliberately antagonized me every single time we’ve been within earshot of each other. 

 

“We could at least try to utilize that website we made last year, instead of letting it-” I begin, before someone cuts me off. 

 

_ I am the leader of this meeting, and you…. keeping order in this place is like teaching trolls how to do ballet, except even more futile….  _

 

“...even if we get shut down, couldn’t we hold the entire town council hostage until they acquiesce to our demands?” Ivan asks, and that is the absolute stupidest thing anyone in this room has ever said. 

 

_ One, that’s illegal. Two, none of us own weapons, while the town council has at least one person who knows how to use a gun. Three, aren’t you banned from being within 500 feet of Town Hall, or was it some other building….  _

 

“Isn’t your sister on the council?” Ludwig asks, and I can’t believe that we are  _ seriously  _ debating holding the entire town government hostage over a library. 

 

_ This is what happens when your library is governed by three idiots and Francis Bonnefoy! Fire them all!  _

 

“....we’re not holding her hostage. Everyone else is fair game.” 

 

“We are not going to be breaking the law to keep this building open.” Kiku says, and I can’t believe that someone actually had to say that sentence. 

 

“Thank you for your display of sensibleness. Unfortunately, as the rest of you here are morons or getting overrun by morons, we’re going to adjourn this meeting and move it to tomorrow, when you all can hopefully develop some semblance of intelligence.” I say, for my head is going to explode if I spend another twenty seconds with these people. 

 

* * *

 

Arthur Kirkland ran over my wife with a car a few months ago. 

 

He claims that he didn’t do it, and the jury ruled him not guilty of doing it because no one besides me saw her murderer’s car, let alone their face, for it was dark and rainy and the car had left Hearth before the police arrived at the crime scene. 

 

Against three cafe employees and five diners who said that they had no idea what the car even looked like, let alone its driver, the testimony of one grief-stricken widower with a very obvious grudge against the person he was accusing of murder didn’t hold weight. But I was standing on the other side of the road when the car mowed Jeanne down, and I saw his face, illuminated by moonlight. 

 

_ Why did you do it? You had no reason to kill my wife, but you found her crossing the road on a rainy May evening, and decided to run her over….  _

 

He claims that he was at home when Jeanne died, but he doesn’t even know that his son’s on the town library board, so I don’t trust his memory at all. 

 

_ Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get a different result, and ever since the library stopped hosting those town-wide events five or six years ago, the number of people visiting here has decreased dramatically.  _

 

_ The lesson that should be learned from our failed project was to not get wrapped up in Antonio’s desperate attempts to get people to buy his tomatoes, not that we should close our doors to Hearth’s population!  _

 

Mathieu has ideas for starting classes in how to read and speak other languages, but if his father forgets his existence and occasionally calls him Alfred, how is he going to get them across to anybody? He’s sitting at my kitchen table and debating something with Victoria, and I hope this’ll help him get better at being visible. 

 

_ Victoria has Jeanne’s passion and artistry, while Celine has her looks and intelligence. I didn’t speak to either of my girls for three days after the accident, so what makes me better….   _

 

“Mathieu, are you staying for dinner?” I ask, as he turns towards me with a surprised expression. 

 

“Um, that’s my brother’s name….” he answers, and the man at the table  _ does  _ have blue eyes instead of purple and a straight cowlick instead of a curl…. 

 

_ Mon dieu…. what are you doing here?!  _

 

“Why did you come back?” I ask, for it’s like a ghost has fallen into my kitchen, and he needs to see his father right now. 

 

“I’m going to run for that empty council seat, and save the library from destruction.” he answers. 

 

_ You…. haven’t changed one bit, haven’t you? You left Hearth for five years, and came back because there’s a wrong you wanted to right.  _

 

“...anyways, that’s why I’m in your house, Mr. Bonnefoy, since I’ve been asking everyone in the town what their opinions are on the library and some other town issues.” Alfred continues. 

 

“What do they think?” I ask, for if we get data on what the people think, we can tailor the library to their demands and get them to come. 

“Apart from one guy who chased me off his lawn with a shotgun, everyone else seems to think that the council’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater with this situation. I took notes, if you want to see them….” he answers, as he pulls a notepad out of his jacket pocket and passes it to me. 

 

_ This is perfect. Thank you, for helping me… and I’ll help you in return.  _

 

_ Alfred, go home, and talk to your father. It’ll help you both…. and look at me, giving advice to both of my mortal enemy’s children. Gilbert would’ve laughed, but he’s in the hospital….  _

 

“Um, this is weird, but can I stay here for a bit? Do you have a guest room, Mr. Bonnefoy?” he asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

 

“Yes, I have a guest room that no one’s using right now, but why do you want to know this?” I ask, for there’s no reason for him to live in my guestroom at all.  

 

“Because this is absolute last place in town my father would visit, and I just want to… not see him for a while? I’ll pay you, don’t worry.” 

 

_ No, I won’t let you stay here. I’m sorry, but you need to see him, for your own good. Please, don’t hide your problems under the rug until they blow up in your face….  _

 

Before I can answer, he sprints up the stairs with a pair of suitcases and starts opening doors at random, leaving me with my younger daughter. 

 

“So, I guess we have a guest now?” she asks. 

 

“I guess we do, Victoria. I’ll try to get him out of the house as soon as possible, but we’re temporarily hosting him.” I answer, for he can’t avoid his father forever. 

 

“I don’t mind having him here; he seemed like a nice person.” she responds. 

 

_ That has nothing to…. I’ll explain later. Did you ever meet him, before he left, Victoria? You probably didn’t…. and I’m cooking dinner for four for the first time in three months, since Mathieu doesn’t like to eat when he’s visiting….  _

 

_ Celine’ll be home from the bank soon, and I’ll…. wait a minute….  _

 

My older daughter interns at a bank and wants to study finance in college, so she could, hypothetically, run an audit of the library’s finances and see if we’re actually as bankrupt as Kirkland thinks we are. 

 

_ I’ll talk to her and I’ll talk to Alfred and I’ll see what can be done. But the library is going to survive. _

 

* * *

 

_ I could take time off from work, for I can’t focus on trying to save a building when my brother’s in the hospital with stage three liver cancer….  _

 

The council is going to go to hell if I’m not playing an active role there, for Arthur and Francis are going to yell at each other the whole time, Feliciano and Yao are going to suggest crazy ideas, and Ivan is going to suggest out crazy and violent ideas, so I need to go to work and actually try to say things, unlike today. 

 

_ Well, how was I supposed to react after I spent all of last night in the hospital with my brother and found out that he’s going to die?! I’ve always seen him as a bastion of crazy strength, and now he’s dying….  _

 

I’m halfway across the bridge to Kiterre when I realize that there’s someone in my car singing along to the radio in either Latin or Italian. Thankfully, there’s no one else driving, so I can safely stop the car on the side of the road and examine the backseat and trunk of my car…. 

 

_ What the-what the fuck are you doing in there, Feliciano?! You could’ve died!  _

 

“Um, I wanted to come along to the hospital with you, because I thought it’d help you remember stuff and you left your trunk unlocked, so I climbed into it when you were getting your keys!” 

 

“Since you’re already in my car and I don’t feel like throwing you into the river, you can come along with me, but  _ please  _ put on a seatbelt.” I say, for we’re going to be turning onto the highway in five minutes, and I’m not going to risk anyone dying in my car. 

 

_ I have no idea why he’s still on a one-man crusade to get the first sixteen years of my memory back, but he’s very determined when he settles on something he wants to do.  _

 

The first memory I have is of him jumping out of a tomato crate in my hospital room and throwing a box of cannolis at my face, which woke me up from some weird dream where I was a Nazi. It’s an incredibly weird beginning to the story of my life after losing all of my memory and parents in a car accident, but weirdness is obsequious in Hearth. 

 

_ Still, we need to stop the council from killing the library before Election Day, and we can’t do that by getting into a set of pointless arguments every time someone says anything.  _

 

“Is your brother still adamant about the library needing to close?” I ask. 

 

“He’s an extreme cynic, and he still thinks it’s a drain on the town whose money could be better used for road repairs and school funding. The other three are neutral.” Feliciano answers, but there’s my brother’s empty seat….

 

_ One of us could run for office, but that’s kind of unethical and the only one of us I’d trust to run for anything is Kiku…. then again, at least three of the representatives were mildly crazy before my brother….  _

 

“Hey, aren’t you in a string quartet, Ludwig? You guys could perform whatever it is you’re doing, couldn’t you?” he asks, as I exit the highway and turn into the hospital’s parking lot. 

 

“How many people in Hearth would want to listen to classical music?” I ask, as I park and exit the car. 

 

_ Okay, so if we did perform and sell tickets, Roderich’s wife would come, as would Vera’s and Lukas’ husbands, plus his younger brother, so that’s at least four people? Does Roderich have a kid as well?  _

 

_ I guess that’s the advantage of being in a quartet with three married people…. and it’d make more money than whatever the hell you cooked up last year with the tomatoes. Sorry about that.  _

 

“I said, I’m his fiance! We’re getting married in June!” Feliciano exclaims to a nurse as he drags me down the hallway and into the elevator, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

 

“Why did you say that?” I ask, for there is absolutely no reason for him to yell that, but he  _ does  _ do a bunch of random stuff that makes no sense to anyone watching. 

 

“The nurse told me that only family members could visit your brother, so I made something up.” 

 

_ Couldn’t you have at least…. actually, on second thought, that does make the most sense of everything random you could’ve come up with.  _

 

The elevator reaches the third floor, and I walk into room 3-10. My brother is lying in bed right now, and I’m not sure if he can hear me, but I can try to reach him. 

  
“So, I don’t know what you thought about the library, but the council actually put up their plan to turn it into a museum, and we’re trying to save it….”  


	2. Chapter 2

If I could choose between talking to an army of polar bears and talking to the library’s board of directors today, I’d go with the polar bears, for at least they’d hear me before they killed me. 

 

_ I have notes and Alfred sent me a copy of all the stuff he got from talking to everyone in town, but there is no way in hell anyone’s going to hear me, for Dad and Francis are going to be arguing the whole time and no one else there has any idea that I exist.  _

 

It’d be more productive for me to figure out where my brother’s staying and help him campaign for the open seat, but I’m going to run into the same problems, for  _ no one  _ else in this town acts like they can see me. 

 

_ I should research genetic anomalies that cause people to reflect light in weird ways, for I seem to have inherited one.  _

 

People use the library for research, and I’ve seen a few people reading some of the historical treatises and speeches that we have there. My brother’s conversation with the about fifty people he ran into says that the most common other usage of the library is for people who discuss stuff with the tech support guys, so expansion does look like a good idea. 

 

_ Unfortunately, he never found out how much money we have, although he could probably convince the bank to investigate our finances…. and I wish I could do that.  _

 

_ Should I tell him that I was actually glad the day he left, for that meant that I wouldn’t be his shadow anymore?  _

 

The rest of the board is filing into our meeting-room, and it looks like the only people who’ve gotten any sleep last night are Dad and Kiku. I don’t know if that means that the others did  research last night or are sleep-deprived, but we’re going to be in for an interesting meeting either way. 

 

_ If someone talks to me, I will buy them a lifetime supply of pancakes.  _

 

“I shall call the meeting to order by distributing the following set of statistics.” Francis says as he bangs a tiny gavel and passes everyone except me a sheet of paper. I look over Yao’s shoulder, only to realize that he somehow got ahold of Alfred’s notes. 

 

_ I’ll ask him where my brother’s staying after this meeting, for they clearly seem to be in contact.  _

 

“Did an imbecile write these? I can’t read a single word of these papers, so they are irrelevant to this discussion. Now, let’s get to our actual discussion-” Dad begins, before he gets cut off. 

 

_ Okay, cue argument that takes over the entire discussion on how to keep this place open. Yay.  _

 

“The writer of these notes was your son, if I am not mistaken.” 

 

“...he’s dead. He’s dead and died an unfortunate death in ignominious circumstances because of his obsession with saving people, and his body’s in the cemetery and…. I don’t have any living children. What are you talking about?” 

 

“What about your son who’s sitting in this very meeting-room? Shouldn’t you, in the very least, be cognizant of his existence?” 

 

_ Um, thank you for acknowledging my existence, but I really don’t want you two to get into a screaming-match over me with the entire library council listening. Although they’ll probably assume that you’re talking about someone else.  _

 

“So, while they’re having another one of their arguments, shall we just call the rest of us to order and discuss?” Kiku asks as he slams another tiny gavel on the table.

 

“Okay! Did any of you know that Hearth has a string quartet?! Well, now you do, and I think having them perform here sometime soon would be a great idea!” Feliciano exclaims. 

 

_ That’s…. a couple million times better than the last thing you suggested.  _

 

“If any of you are concerned about his ideas, this quartet actually exists and we’re willing to perform for free.” Ludwig says as he pulls up a video of three violinists and a cellist playing music in someone’s living room. 

 

“It’s very kind of the four of you to contribute your music to our community. Who do we discuss scheduling with?” Yao asks, and I can’t believe that we’re  _ actually  _ having a productive discussion…. 

 

“Vera and Roderich co-run it and they’re neighbors, so talk to them.”

 

“...um, so all in favor of having the Hearth String Quartet perform, say I. If we get four votes, we’ll run it by Francis and Arthur before setting it up.” Kiku commands as he bangs the gavel and stares at the floor. 

 

“If there’re only seven people on this council, why are there eight chairs in this room?” Ludwig asks, and the eighth chair is because I’m here, but no one sees me. 

 

_ But they can hear me, can’t they? I just need to say I, and they’ll count the vote.  _

 

_ Stay calm. Act like you’re doing something normal, and raise your hand and say I. You can explain who you are later.  _

 

Before I can say a single word, a pair of hands wrap around my throat, and someone’s…. choking…. me…. 

 

* * *

 

There is mist everywhere. It’s like I’m trapped in a prison of my mind’s creation, for there is a riddle it wants me to solve. 

 

_ Once upon a time, I woke up to my sister giving me a man’s finger. I’d blacked out before then, but of what I’d remembered, there was no reason for her to do that.  _

 

_ Yet there’s a house with a red door that’s important, somehow….  _

 

Natalia’s an archer who throws knives in her spare time, and she also studies fencing with Elizaveta Hedervary. Katia told me last night that she’s willing to bend on the issue of the library, but she’s unsure about anyone else’s bendability. 

 

I don’t quite understand why the other members of the library council don’t like my plan to hold Town Hall hostage until they agree to keep us open. No matter what they do to us, we’re going to win, and we can use this time to discuss other things about running the building. 

 

_ I’ve…. there was someone who could help me, before that day, deal with my life. What happened to him? Why did he shut his doors to me?  _

 

The mist is thickening around me, that much I’m sure of. I don’t know anything about this man, but he had to have been important, in some way or another. There’s a girl with a saber, the kind Natalia uses, but when did she dye her hair blonde? 

 

_ Did she use that sword to slice the finger off?  _

 

The only thing I’m sure of is that Natalia is the one who sliced off the finger. She used to be incredibly detached and kind of violent, before Katia enrolled her in fencing lessons and hired a guy to teach her how to throw knives, which happened  _ after _ I woke up with a gap in my memory. 

 

_ I wasn’t drunk. It’s an established fact that I did not get drunk and blacked out because of that, for I wouldn’t have been haunted by bits and pieces of memories if I drank….  _

 

I wish that I could move through the mist, but I’m paralyzed. I can only see what it shows me, and there are voices surrounding me talking about classical music. Katia enjoys it, for she keeps listening to composers I’ve never heard of and used to play the piano and sing…. so what did she have to do with this mess? 

 

_ She…. when did I see her? After I woke up, and after Natalia gave me that finger…. she gave me a sheet of paper. And she was crying. I think that was what she did?  _

 

There’s a man standing in front of me, and he looks like a ghost. He’s trapped in the mist, and looks like a hybrid of my sisters, for he has blonde hair and violet eyes, and he’s important to the mystery, just like everything is important to untangling what on earth happened that day…. 

_ The other person was like him, wasn’t he? He was such a conciliatory person, and he was…. too kind for his own good? Wait, that doesn’t make sense at all, but he was a very nice person, and something happened and there was a chainsaw, I think?  _

 

This is the most information I’ve ever gotten about what happened then, but if I can rescue the man from the the mist, I’ll learn more and save him from being doomed to a lonely existence… and I can move my arms. 

 

_ If only the rest of my body wasn’t frozen, for I can only reach his neck at this point….  _

 

I grab the ghostly man by the neck and attempt to extract him from the mist, but I can’t move him one bit, for he’s a prisoner of this place and I don’t know what exactly I am, but I am always surrounded by this mist, and it won’t go away until I solve the mystery. 

 

_ Wait, that’s wrong. The mist has always been there, but it went away after…. something? It had to do with the things I forgot, which involved another pale man and a chair, who had his finger sliced off?  _

 

“The majority has spoken, and the Hearth String Quartet will be performing. Now, does anyone know why we’re hearing disembodied screams?” one of my co-workers asks as he bangs a gavel, but isn’t hearing them normal? 

 

“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MURDER MY CHILD?!” someone else exclaims, and they’re staring at me, that much I know, but ghosts are already dead and most people can’t see them, so why do they care so much? 

 

“I’m trying to save him from his miserable, invisible existence.” I answer, but this feels familiar, like I’ve done this before and forgotten all about it…. 

 

_ There was a couch. And an office and a kind man with a missing finger, and that was the beginning and the end of that event…. so all I need is the middle.  _

 

_ After I gain that, I will know everything.  _

 

* * *

 

There are people screaming in the meeting-room right above me, and I have no idea how I got used to hearing the board of directors get into massive fights every single time they meet. 

 

_ Well, you get used to a lot of things when you’re hired to do tech support in a town that just installed computers in its library last year and your co-worker is the one who gets all the attention because…. people prefer handsome men to normal-looking people, I guess. _

 

This building could become a museum in two months, and they probably wouldn’t even notice. I sent them proposals for getting more computers and teaching kids how to program, and I don’t think they’ve ever gotten anywhere near reading them. 

 

_ You need to wake up and realize that the rest of the world’s entered the computer age, and by digitizing the massive pile of documents in your repository, you can make them more accessible and less likely to be damaged.  _

 

The volunteers agree with me. If I can say that there’s one perk to this job, it’s that I’ve been able to meet all of the students who volunteer here, and that they have enough interesting ideas to last a lifetime. 

 

_ The board really should listen to the volunteers, for they’re the ones who see most of the daily going-ons in this building. Most of them share the general opinion that we’re a bit archaic, and need to face the music of the digital age.  _

 

_ Unfortunately, books aren’t going to be the only thing that’ll keep us alive….  _

 

“So, how’re the tech complaints going?” Tino asks as he passes me a notebook. 

 

“My co-worker gets all of the intelligent people, and I get stuck with people who don’t understand that you need to connect your laptop to the wi-fi to get onto the internet. How’re the kids?” I answer, for small children have more knowledge about computers than some of the idiots I’ve run into. 

 

_ At least I get paid well for doing this?  _

 

“Thankfully, a lot more fun to be around than your clients. You should read this.” he quips, as he opens the notebook to a random page. 

 

_ The shadow is everywhere, and I cannot kill him. He stands over me with a knife, and saps the energy of his victims…. and in the end, we are all prisoners of our minds, with life a puzzle we valiantly try to unravel.  _

 

“Who wrote this?” I ask, for it’s good, albeit a bit disjointed and disturbing…. 

 

“Your younger brother did.” Tino answers, and I know that he’s still affected by what happened a while ago, but if he feels like he’s falling into his own mind, I really should help him. 

 

_ Does it count as a legal conflict of interest if the only psychologist in town is our older brother? I don’t think most people in town care about that, but I just want to make sure…. since I don’t think driving to Kiterre to see someone could work, financially….  _

 

“He’s…. a very private person with his writing, for he thinks it’s all awful.” I say, for I probably shouldn’t be thinking about depressing things in what could be the final two months of this library’s existence. 

 

“There are a lot of artistic people in this town, come to think of it. If the board’s willing to actually do anything to save us, they could just host some open-gallery event and invite everyone in this town who thinks that they have some semblance of talent to display their work.” he responds, and if you threw in enough money for a 3-D printer, that’d actually be a very good idea. 

 

“So, I guess it’s up to the two of us and six teenagers to save this building. I’ll email them about your ideas, and we’ll see how that goes?” I ask, as we begin to walk out the door. 

 

“Let’s hope this goes better than whatever the hell they were doing upstairs. Do you and Raivis want to stay for dinner while we plan this? Berwald and I can cook for six.” he answers. 

 

_ So he did go home with Peter earlier?  _

 

“If it’s not going to be a burden on your guys, then yes.” I answer, as I pull out my phone and start looking up the cheapest place to buy a 3-D printer for the Hearth Public Library. 

 

* * *

 

There’s someone pounding on my door like a madman, and I have thankfully learned how to ignore the arguments my neighbors get into. 

 

_ If you’re trying to escape Heracles and Sadiq’s arguments, please move somewhere else, unless you work in a job that involves people yelling at each other every second. They’re both very nice people to be around unless you put them within earshot of each other.  _

 

“Excuse me, but I am your boss and I’m firing you if you don’t open this door!” Arthur exclaims as I walk away from my tea and open the door. He looks like he’s been…. crying, for a while…. 

 

_ If you’re firing me, I actually won’t mind, for I was not expecting my father to be on the board.  _

 

“I am sorry for whatever I did to get fired.” I answer, as he collapses into a chair and pours himself a cup of tea. 

 

“I was kidding…. but I’m partaking in the grand Hearth tradition of walking into someone’s house unannounced and talking about my life, while you sit there and nod.” he says. 

 

“Isn’t that just how the psychologist's office works? It’s the building with the red door that’s across the road from the bank.” I respond. 

 

_ If you need help, you should see him, not me. I’m not trained in any of this, and barely leave my house for non-work reasons.   _

 

“I don’t have mental problems, I just…. need to talk to someone about something, and you happen to be the lucky person who’s stuck playing psychiatrist.” he rambles, as he pours himself a second cup of tea. 

 

“Are you planning on firing anyone?” I ask, for I have no idea what he wants to talk about. 

 

“If I could, I’d fire almost everyone, but…. I need alcohol. Do you have alcohol?” he asks, and I  _ hope  _ that he’s sober…. 

 

_ No, I do not have alcohol. Please, don’t drink anything, for you seem to be in a severely compromised emotional state right now.  _

 

“Oh, look at me, babbling on about my life to random strangers. How the fuck…. you’ve lived in Hearth for all your life, correct?” he asks, and it’s like he has no idea what he’s saying. 

 

“Yes...” I answer, for humoring him is probably the best way to deal with my drunk boss wandering into my apartment and rambling like a maniac. 

 

_ If you ignore that time I…. yeah, let’s ignore that. We really should ignore that part of my life.  _

 

“So, you know my children?” he asks. 

 

“Why are you asking me about your children?” 

 

“Because my…. mortal enemy has decided-” he begins, before I interrupt him. 

 

“I live next door to one of the people who was a witness at your trial, and he said that you weren’t anywhere near the crosswalk between the cafe and the library. Furthermore, the police said that the-” I begin, but he starts talking over me. 

 

“That I’m completely unqualified to be any sort of parent, for I basically completely fucked up the last five years of my life by dumping my brother on some random people who wanted a kid, stalking a bunch of people to use as proxies, and just being incredibly neglectful of the one kid I had left…. and that’s how my mind works, isn’t it? Run away to the middle of nowhere at sixteen, discover that you know no one here, adopt some kids for selfish purposes, and read to drown out your feelings…. and then one leaves and the whole house of cards crashes down.” 

 

If I didn’t know any better, I would assume that the person sitting at my table was my father. 

 

_ What…. how am I supposed to react to this?! How am I supposed to help him through this, when what he’s saying is the story of my life from the other perspective?! He blames himself for that time I applied to college abroad, drugged him to get there, and only came back out of guilt?! I can’t even look at him or talk to him without feeling like I should jump out a window, and…..  _

 

_ The only siblings I’m in contact with are those who barely knew me, but for all I know, I am the ghostly existence that hangs around his house and colours his every interaction, which is why they don’t live with him, because it’s no fun, living with a ghost….  _

 

My boss is silent now, and I should try to comfort him, but I’m awful with people and I’ll be acting like he’s my father instead of himself. He’s poured himself another cup of tea, and he doesn’t seem to be spiking it, so he’s fully aware of everything he’s saying, I think…. 

 

“Anyways, that never happened, so did you six come up with anything?” he asks, and his voice sounds normal now. 

 

“We’re hosting the Hearth String Quartet sometime next month.” I answer, but he’s walking out the door and acting like I’m a coatrack. He’s also drunk all of my tea, and I need to talk to Leon and Mei soon. 

 

I pick up my copy of  _ Kafka By The Shore  _ and begin to read, in a futile attempt at self-distraction. 


End file.
